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Karen Lotter

This author has written 26 articles

The Internet will Land me in Jail

authorwebsitesIrish writer,  story teller,  broadcaster, teacher, lecturer and workshop facilitator Catherine Brophy laments her dependence on technology in a tongue in cheek blog post, expressing the frustration we all feel at times.

Getting to grips with The Internet will land me in jail because if one more person advises me that the best way to learn how to use it is to “play around” I WILL bite a lump out of their leg.

If one more person tells me “it’s easy, just a couple of clicks” I will smash their face in.

And if one more person advises me to “write the best book I can,” “be myself”, and warns against posting nastys on Facebook or Twitter, I may just go postal and get out my chainsaw.

I am an adult. I know all this. What I do not know is the nitty-gritty of how the Internet stuff works.   What do I click?   Where do I find it?  I mean whereabouts on that page full of information, tiny writing, moving ads, sidebars, links and photos of kittens.

Yes, yes, I know that nobody can tell me everything about the Internet and that I will have to find out lots of stuff for myself.   But there are things that people could tell me, things that could help get me started.   Give me some confidence.   Lead me out of the pit of despair I fall into when, after hours on line, I’ve found nothing I wanted.   When I’ve surfed and surfed and surfed all for nothing and I just want to chuck it all in and read a nice book.

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Tips on Effectively Conveying Character Emotion

All successful novels, no matter what genre, have one thing in common: emotion, writes Bella Puglisi one half of The Bookshelf Muse blogging duo, and co-author of The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Character Expression.

It lies at the core of every character’s decision, action, and word, all of which drive the story. Without emotion, a character’s personal journey is pointless. Stakes cease to exist. The plot line becomes a dry riverbed of meaningless events that no reader will take time to read. Why? Because above all else, readers pick up a book to have an emotional experience. They read to connect with characters who provide entertainment and whose trials may add meaning to their own life journeys.

It is easy to see the power of emotion and how it connects a reader to the story and characters. The difficulty comes in writing it well. Each scene must achieve a balance between showing too little feeling and showing too much. Above all, the emotional description needs to be fresh and engaging. This is a tall order for writers who tend to reuse the same emotional indicators over and over.

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77 Ways To Find New Readers

Find Time for Social Media: 8 Tips For Self-Publishing Indie Authors

As authors building our author brands and promoting our books, social media can be a great tool for us. If we know how to use it effectively, that is!

So what constitutes using it effectively?

To boil it down, there is one simple rule  for self-published authors to live by…

Interacting and responding to online conversation is what puts the social in social media!

But how can we possibly find the time to reply and comment to every social media mention we get, every blog post comment that we receive and to continue the conversation in other places online?

Especially when you consider all of the other writing and marketing activities we’re expected to do?

We all have certain time constraints, but there is a not-so-difficult answer.

Go deep or go home!

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